p. 5 | Did Jephthah Sacrifice His Daughter? by Stemple White

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Nov 27, 1913

Did Jephthah Sacrifice His Daughter?

By Stemple White

STEMPLE WHITE

Infidelity is ever ready to find fault with what it thinks the Bible teaches, and would at any time impeach the word of God. Thus it is that some raise their hands in horror at the story of Jephthah, who, says the critic, offered up as a burnt sacrifice his only daughter, in order to keep his word with God; in other words, broke God's law in order to keep it.

Did Jephthah offer his only daughter as a burnt sacrifice?—A thousand times No! Jephthah did not do this, neither does the Bible teach that he did. “But,” says one, quoting Judges 11: 39, “does not the record say that he ‘did with her according to his vow which he had vowed’?” We answer, Certainly, he did with her according to his vow. But what was his vow? Read Judges 11: 30, 31.

“And Jephthah vowed a vow unto the Lord, and said, If thou shalt without fail deliver the children of Ammon into mine hands, then it shall be, that whatsoever cometh forth of the doors of my house to meet me, when I return in peace from the children of Ammon, shall surely be the Lord's, and I will offer it up for a burnt offering.” The marginal reading says, “Or I will offer it, etc.” Jephthah well knew that his only daughter or some of his favorite stock might first meet him on his return home, hence vowed accordingly. If a bullock or ram should first meet him, it was to be offered as a special sacrifice. If his only daughter should first meet him, then she should be the Lord's; not to be offered up as a burnt sacrifice, but, like the Nazarite, not to marry, which in those days of the promised Seed to come was a condition not to be envied by any daughter of Israel. We know that the marginal rendering is correct, by what follows. So we read the simple narrative as found in Judges 11: 34-40:— “ And Jephthah came to Mizpeh unto his house, and, behold, his daughter came out to meet him with timbrels and with dances: and she was his only child; beside her he had neither son nor daughter. And it came to pass, when he saw her, that he rent his clothes, and said, Alas, my daughter! thou hast brought me very low, and thou art one of them that trouble me: for I have opened my mouth unto the Lord, and I cannot go back. And she said unto him, My father, if thou hast opened thy mouth unto the Lord, do to me according to that which hath proceeded out of thy mouth; forasmuch as the Lord hath taken vengeance for thee of thine enemies, even of the children of Ammon.” And now, after Jephthah had informed his daughter of the nature of his vow,—that she was to be the Lord's, never to marry,—she accepted the situation, and so it is written: “And she said unto her father, Let this thing be done for me: let me alone two months, that I may go up and down upon the mountains, and bewail my virginity, I and my fellows. And he said, Go. And he sent her away for two months: and she went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity upon the mountains. And it came to pass at the end of two months, that she returned unto her father, who did with her according to his vow which he had vowed: and she knew no man. And it was a custom in Israel, that the daughters of Israel went yearly [“from year to year,” margin] to lament [“to TALK WITH,” margin] the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite four days in a year.”

These wicked Ammonites had themselves sprung from one who was the son of one of the daughters of Lot by their own drunken father. Gen. 19: 30-38. These unchaste daughters would “preserve seed.” The Ammonites were ever the enemies of God. So when Jephthah was given a great victory over these wicked descendants of Lot's daughter who would “preserve seed,” then it was that the daughter of Jephthah, unlike the daughters of Lot, accepted the situation according to her father's vow, and in thanksgiving to God for great victory the lineage of Jephthah perished. The only daughter was the Lord's.

Our loving Heavenly Father is not related to Moloch. We cannot keep God's law by breaking it. “To obey is better than sacrifice.” Jephthah did not offer up his daughter as a burnt sacrifice, yet he did with her according to his vow.

Wells, Minn.